Bistro Latino finds home at former Greenwich Tavern

Olivia Just

Published 7:49 pm, Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Bistro Latino, the new restaurant from chef Rafael Palomino, has opened in the space of the former Greenwich Tavern on East Putnam Avenue. The restaurant features tapas plates and other Spanish-style food.
Photo: Contributed Photo

While the Greenwich Tavern used to serve upscale American-style food like salmon and skirt steak, the menu of its successor, Bistro Latino, is more at home in Spain or South America

Earlier this year, Greenwich Tavern at 1392 E. Putnam Ave., closed to make way for renovations to accommodate the new style and atmosphere that its chef, Rafael Palomino, hoped to bring to his new Spanish-themed venture, Bistro Latino.

The restaurant, which opened last month, offers a simple twist on the traditional Spanish tapas, making the small savory plates with seasonal ingredients to create what Palomino calls "modern tapas."

Palomino's new menu has taken some of the staples of Greenwich Tavern -- steak, gourmet mac and cheese, seafood -- and played with different, more Latin-based flavors, adding other elements of Spanish cuisine like paella and a selection of Spanish wines.

"People like it, it's exciting, it's fun because with tapas, you don't have to get a main course, so you can have more flexibility," Palomino said. "It's a little more recession friendly."

Bistro Latino has changed the look of the venue, too, with 400 bottles of wine lining the walls, bare wood surfaces stripped of white tablecloths and an opportunity for communal dining at two long, narrow tables running through the restaurant.

"The whole energy is different," Palomino said. "You come in and you have those two communal tables, which give that New York City energy to it."

Bistro Latino is geared to appeal to a younger audience, Palomino said, and provide a place for both Greenwich and Stamford customers to eat outside of the downtown areas. The location, which hosted a number of restaurants before Greenwich Tavern, has always been a popular spot, said Marcia O'Kane, executive director of the Greenwich Chamber of Commerce.

"That tends to be a good site for restaurants," O'Kane said, citing ample parking and easy accessibility as contributing factors. "I have no doubt they'll do well because they'll benefit from the folks who used to frequent Greenwich Tavern. It seems that Spanish food is very popular these days and I'm sure they will take advantage of that trend."

Palomino, born in Bogota, Colombia, introduced his brand of Latin food in the 1990s, with the restaurant Sonora in New York City. Since then, the restaurants he has opened include Black Rock Tavern in Fairfield and Pacifico in New Haven, as well as restaurants in Pennsylvania and New York.